the old church of E-, and within a league of the ancient town of N-, the capital of one of the eastern counties. The terrible Thurtell was present, lord of the concourse; for wherever he moved he was master, and whenever he spoke, even when in chains, every other voice was silent. He stood on the mead, grim and pale as usual, with his bruisers around. He it was, indeed, who got up the fight, as he had previously done twenty others; it being his frequent boast that he had first introduced bruising and bloodshed amidst rural scenes, and transformed a quiet slumbering town into a den of Jews and metropolitan thieves. Some time before the commencement of the combat, three men, mounted on wild-looking horses, came dashing down the road in the direction of the meadow, in the midst of which they presently showed themselves, their horses clearing the deep ditches with wonderful alacrity. ‘That’s Gypsy Will and his gang,’ lisped a Hebrew pickpocket; ‘we shall have another fight.’ The word Gypsy was always sufficient to excite my curiosity, and I looked attentively at the newcomers.
I have seen Gypsies of various lands, Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish; and I have also seen the legitimate children of most countries of the world; but I never saw, upon the whole, three more remarkable individuals, as far as personal appearance was concerned, than the three English Gypsies who now presented themselves to my eyes on that spot. Two of them had dismounted, and were holding their horses by the reins. The tallest, and, at the first glance, the most interesting of the two, was almost a giant, for his height could not have been less than six feet three. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive anything more perfectly beautiful than were the features of this man, and the most skilful sculptor of Greece might have taken them as his model for a hero and a god. The forehead was exceedingly lofty—a rare thing in a Gypsy; the nose less Roman than Grecian—fine yet delicate; the eyes large, overhung with long drooping lashes, giving them almost a melancholy expression; it was only when the lashes were elevated that the Gypsy glance was seen, if that can be called a glance which is a strange stare, like nothing else in this world. His complexion was a beautiful olive; and his teeth were of a brilliancy uncommon even amongst these people, who have all fine teeth. He was dressed in a coarse waggoner’s slop, which, however, was unable to conceal altogether the proportions of his noble and Herculean figure. He might be about twenty-eight. His companion and his captain, Gypsy Will, was, I think, fifty when he was hanged, ten years subsequently (for I never afterwards lost sight of him), in the front of the jail of Bury St. Edmunds. I have still present before me his bushy black hair, his black face, and his big black eyes fixed and staring. His dress consisted of a loose blue jockey coat, jockey boots and breeches; in his hand was a huge jockey whip, and on his head (it struck me at the time for its singularity) a broad-brimmed, high-peaked Andalusian hat, or at least one very much resembling those generally worn in that province. In stature he was shorter than his more youthful companion, yet he must have measured six feet at least, and was stronger built, if possible. What brawn!—what bone!—what legs!—what thighs! The third Gypsy, who remained on horseback, looked more like a phantom than any thing human. His complexion was the colour of pale dust, and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and clothes. His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his very horse was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most of his teeth were gone, and as to his age, he might be thirty or sixty. He was somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his steed, which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit. I subsequently discovered that he was considered the wizard of the gang.
I have been already prolix with respect to these Gypsies, but I will not leave them quite yet. The intended combatants at length arrived; it was necessary to clear the ring—always a troublesome and difficult task. Thurtell went up to the two Gypsies, with whom he seemed to be acquainted, and with his surly smile, said two or three words, which I, who was standing by, did not understand. The Gypsies smiled in return, and giving the reins of their animals to their mounted companion, immediately set about the task which the king of the flash-men had, as I conjecture, imposed upon them; this they soon accomplished. Who could stand against such fellows and such whips? The fight was soon over—then there was a pause. Once more Thurtell came up to the Gypsies and said something—the Gypsies looked at each other and conversed; but their words then had no meaning for my ears. The tall Gypsy shook his head—‘Very well,’ said the other, in English. ‘I will—that’s all.’
Then pushing the people aside, he strode to the ropes, over which he bounded into the ring, flinging his Spanish hat high into the air.
Gypsy Will.—‘The best man in England for twenty pounds!’
Thurtell.—‘I am backer!’
Twenty pounds is a tempting sum, and there men that day upon the green meadow who would have shed the blood of their own fathers for the fifth of the price. But the Gypsy was not an unknown man, his prowess and strength were notorious, and no one cared to encounter him. Some of the Jews looked eager for a moment; but their sharp eyes quailed quickly before his savage glances, as he towered in the ring, his huge form dilating, and his black features convulsed with excitement. The Westminster bravoes eyed the Gypsy askance; but the comparison, if they made any, seemed by no means favourable to themselves. ‘Gypsy! rum chap.—Ugly customer—always in training.’ Such were the exclamations which I heard, some of which at that period of my life I did not understand.
No man would fight the Gypsy.—Yes! a strong country fellow wished to win the stakes, and was about to fling up his hat in defiance, but he was prevented by his friends, with—‘Fool! he’ll kill you!’
As the Gypsies were mounting their horses, I heard the dusty phantom exclaim—
‘Brother, you are an arrant ring-maker and a horse-breaker; you’ll make a hempen ring to break your own neck of a horse one of these days.’
They pressed their horses’ flanks, again leaped over the ditches, and speedily vanished, amidst the whirlwinds of dust which they raised upon the road.
The words of the phantom Gypsy were ominous. Gypsy Will was eventually executed for a murder committed in his early youth, in company with two English labourers, one of whom confessed the fact on his death-bed. He was the head of the clan Young, which, with the clan Smith, still haunts two of the eastern counties.
SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE ENGLISH GYPSIES
It is difficult to say at what period the Gypsies or Rommany made their first appearance in England. They had become, however, such a nuisance in the time of Henry the Eighth, Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth, that Gypsyism was denounced by various royal statutes, and, if persisted in, was to be punished as felony without benefit of clergy; it is probable, however, that they had overrun England long before the period of the earliest of these monarchs. The Gypsies penetrate into all countries, save poor ones, and it is hardly to be supposed that a few leagues of intervening salt water would have kept a race so enterprising any considerable length of time, after their arrival on the continent of Europe, from obtaining a footing in the fairest and richest country of the West.
It is easy enough to conceive the manner in which the Gypsies lived in England for a long time subsequent to their arrival: doubtless in a half-savage state, wandering about from place to place, encamping on the uninhabited spots, of which there were then so many in England, feared and hated by the population, who looked upon them as thieves and foreign sorcerers, occasionally committing acts of brigandage, but depending chiefly for subsistence on the practice of the ‘arts of Egypt,’ in which cunning and dexterity were far more necessary than courage or strength of hand.
It would appear that they were always divided into clans or tribes, each bearing a particular name, and to which a particular district more especially belonged, though occasionally they would exchange districts for a period, and, incited
